Ubisoft confirms Watch Dogs 2 will be part of its E3 lineup

Watch Dogs, the open-world third-person title from 2014, was one of those games that seemed to divide opinion. Some called it a poor Grand Theft Auto copy with hacking elements thrown in; others, including me, loved it. The game shipped over 10 million copies, so Ubisoft’s confirmation that the sequel will be unveiled at E3 shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

In a press release, Ubisoft said it will "present highly anticipated titles such as Watch Dogs 2, For Honor, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands," along with "some surprises," at the E3 event.

Watch Dogs 2’s existence was revealed in Ubisoft’s third-quarter financial report back in February. On the subject of games slated to be released by the end of its next fiscal year, the company said: "Ubisoft will launch a very high-quality line-up, including For Honor, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, [and] the next instalment of Watch Dogs."

One of the criticisms aimed at the first game was the fact that lead character Aiden Pearce lacked any form of personality. But thanks to an Instagram post (spotted by NerdLeaks) from actor Cort King in May, it looks like Aiden’s been booted from the sequel – or at least relegated to a supporting role.

"Had a blast doing motion capture work as the lead character in a new video game series! (= #actor #motioncapture #artist #videogames #ps4 #xbox #art #work #comingsoon #WatchDogs2", Cort wrote next to an image of what’s assumed to be the game’s new protagonist.

Watch Dogs 2’s E3 debut looked all but certain last week after Ubisoft sent a “gift box” containing Ray Bans sporting the game’s name and logo to YouTuber The Rad Brad.

Hopefully, the sequel won’t suffer the same disastrous launch as the first Watch Dogs. The original was plagued with performance issues and bugs, especially on the PC, where it was virtually unplayable on even the beefiest of GPUs for the first few weeks after release. It also suffered from corrupted save game files, constant crashes, and in some cases it stopped working completely.

We’ll learn more about Watch Dogs 2, which will reportedly support DirectX 12, and Ubisoft’s other new titles at the company’s E3 conference, which is scheduled to take place on Monday, June 13, starting at 1 pm (PDT), following a 30-minute pre-show.